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A couple of things in this post made me snort because we all know I have neeeeeever been impatient or stubborn! Ok, so I may be totally impatient, busy and stubborn lol and, yup, I have to agree that it can make my life certainly harder (at least emotionally!) so I can conceded that it is definitely mistakes to void. While I was renovating my grandma’s house goodness knows I had several VERY stubborn moments but, ya know what, sometimes being stubborn can get stuff done! The following is an article contributed to Grandma’s House DIY that I felt was really informative.

DIY can be a very interesting hobby. It can even turn out to be a huge money saver when you need it the most. Problem with DIY is the potential lack of skills when one first begins working something by himself. If I could sum up this lack of skills into one question that beginners ask the most it would be ‘What should I do next?’

If you are completely new and have very little DIY experience, you haven’t yet had the chance to develop your skills and one develops his skills by practicing and making mistakes. If you become aware of those mistakes before you make them, you will speed up your learning curve and gain experience more quickly. That’s why we have decided to compile a list of common mistakes beginners and experienced users make when they are doing DIY work.

Since DIY is a very wide area, we will focus on general mistakes in this article and give you tips on how to avoid them.

Buying too cheap or too expensive equipment

I know that you want to start off with the best equipment possible but let’s stop for a moment and think about it.

Do you really want to buy a professional multimeter that costs three hundred dollars, for example; and then waste hours and hours of time on learning how to use it because you find its vast number of functions overwhelming? I don’t think so.

Another critical mistake is buying equipment that is too cheap. People who do that probably think that buying such equipment will give them free room to make mistakes and that certainly is true. What they don’t have in mind is that they will make mistakes, but this cheap equipment will increase the amount of mistakes that they make.

Best thing to do if you don’t want to be overwhelmed or halt your progress entirely by using cheap stuff is to buy things that are somewhere in between of entry level and mid level price range. Such equipment is designed for users that are just beginning and they plan on to continue learning.

Once you find that your experience level has increased, you can buy higher grade pieces of equipment.

Thinking that DIY is incredibly easy

DIY certanily isn’t hard, but just because something seems simple, it doesn’t mean that it’s very easy. You need to have a plan in mind before you start doing anything and the same goes for DIY.

Here’s the deal: You can’t plan ahead if don’t research what you are doing thoroughly and that research can take some time, depending on the type of project you are doing. Do you see where I’m going?

It can be very easy to undervalue something and you could be the one paying the consequences because your final product will not be at the level you expected.

Being impatient

This one bothers beginners a lot and goes hand in hand with the previous mistake. I know that you can’t wait to complete that one thing that you want so much but you shouldn’t allow yourself to mess up because you didn’t want to take a break.

Besides, there’s one very good thing about taking breaks. When you take a break from what you are doing and stop thinking about it for a couple of hours, you can come up with excellent new ideas and ways in which you can improve your work.

You’ll also be able to see your mistakes more clearly and correct them in time.

Being stubborn

Everyone can probably think of a friend or colleague that doesn’t take anyone’s advice over his own. How does it usually work out for them? I’d say, not so good.

Imagine this. You are a beginner in DIY, you are doing your first project and you planned everything up for yourself. Suddenly, your friend comes over and you show him your work but he tells you that something is wrong and what you should do instead.

If you feel that you are right, you can at least keep his advice in mind. It’s possible that he is wrong even if he has more experience than you, but his advice might prove useful to you and you will at least have another idea if needed.

Not wearing equipment for protection

This mistake is also surprisingly common and people often have no idea that they are doing anything wrong. This mistake, unlike the other ones, tends to correct itself. All it takes is a hammer and just a small loss of focus and people usually realise that they are not wearing gloves in the most painful way possible.

Lucky for you, you found that out the easy way. You should get and always wear protective equipment when working.

Some of the most common pieces of protective eqipment are gloves, helmets and masks. Pick those that are appropriate for the job you are doing and, unlike the advice in the first paragraph, get the good ones from the beginning.

Not measuring and marking the cut before cutting

Beginners don’t do this very often, older, more experienced DIY lovers do. Just because you have experience doesn’t mean that you never make mistakes.

It is impossible for any human being to cut a long plywood board in half and to do it in such a way that dimensions of the final product are as intended. Grabbing a meter and a pen to measure and mark the correct position takes only a couple of seconds and it can save you a ton of material. And nerves.

There is no way to make everything right and it’s best if you reduce the possiblity of error as much as possible.

Although beginners make mistakes the most, even experienced DIY lovers can make them quite often.

In case that you forget something when you gain experience, it can pay off to remind yourself of what to pay attention to once in a while by reading this article and maybe even show it to your friend who is thinking about starting working DIY stuff.

(This is a contributed post, for more information about my compensation please read my disclosure policy)

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I’m Tarah!

There is nothing I love more then making something new and usable again that someone else would have thrown out or torn down. Find out more about me, how I renovated my Grandparents’ 100 year old house and how I am a total DIY fanatic by checking out The story behind Storyhardt Farm You can also find out more about the amazing Grandma behind this blog who moved in to this old farmhouse with my Grandpa nearly 70 years ago!

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